


the moon made thy lips pale, beloved

by ADreamingSongbird



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Curses, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 22:03:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13668186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: Somewhere deep in the woods, nestled in a glen near the foothills of the mountains, is a fairy’s garden. The roses smell sweet, but their thorns are sharp.Or, a cursed prince tries to find his way home, and an innkeeper’s son finds himself trapped in midwinter.





	the moon made thy lips pale, beloved

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! You may recognize this fic, because I did post it a little while ago but then due to my own brain being cruel, I took it down! BUT now it's back. 
> 
> It was originally posted in association with Victuuri Week, but that's over, _my bad_ ahaha. The prompts that precede each section are still the original ones I used from that, though!
> 
> The title comes from [this Percy Shelley poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45129/lines-the-cold-earth-slept-below).

  _i. legends_

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a prince.

All the tales remark upon his beauty, dreamily sighing and swaying like the nobles in his court must have done, a hundred years ago when he walked among them. His hair fell like the finest silver, long and silky and more often than not braided with flowers and ribbons; his laughter was like the tinkling of merry bells. His heart, they say, was full of eternal kindness.

But he was a sad prince, and though he was dearly beloved by the people of his kingdom, he could not live within the palace walls forever. The legends don’t linger on his sorrows, but Yuuri thinks he might understand—the weight of whispers, of eyes and ears always on his actions, must have been so heavy, like stones tied around his neck.

The prince disappeared, one night, over a hundred years ago. Some storytellers say he left a note for his family, saying he ran away; others say he was just gone when they woke. The kingdom grieved, winter came…

…and the story ends there.

It doesn’t matter, Yuuri knows. It’s just a cautionary tale everyone uses to warn their children about not being open and honest, not a real story. The place where the kingdom was supposed to be doesn’t exist—it’s just a barren ice field far to the north.

He sighs, finishing the last of his cool-down stretches. He’s spent too long dancing today—the sun is almost setting, and he promised he would help out at the inn. Dancing is the only thing that fills him with passion, yearning, and satisfaction all at once, but he is the son of a family of innkeepers. Responsibility to his family comes first.

Sure enough, as soon as he returns home, his mother is waiting. She catches him just as she reenters the kitchen, a precarious stack of dishes in her arms, and he hurries to take some of them from her.

“Yuuri! There you are!”

“Okaa-san.” He ducks his head, ashamed, as he places the dishes near the sink where his sister stands, scrubbing away. “I lost track of time. I’m sorry.”

His mother pats his cheek. “That’s alright, dear. Bathe quickly and come help your father with dinner, will you?”

He nods bashfully and bites his lip. “Of course.”

It’s not fair, he thinks, letting steaming water pour over his head and shoulders before swirling away into the drain. He wishes—he wants more, more than just this same routine, every day until he dies. Every time he looks up at the stars and thinks about the distant lands they shine down upon that he’s never going to see, he feels so small he almost feels sick. Is this all there is? Dance, work at the inn, sleep, repeat?

Once he’s dressed, he heads back to the kitchen, but the moonlight creeping in through a window gives him pause, and he glances up to the sky.

 _Just for once in my life,_ he thinks, forlorn, _let me even just catch a glimpse of something more._

(They always did say to be careful what you wish for, but he doesn’t think about that until later.)

When he gets back to his parents, his mother promptly tosses an apron over his head, hands him a tray full of steaming food, and ushers him out to the dining room. The regulars are already back, sitting at the tables around the hearth and laughing, and they all light up when they see him approach with dinner.

“Yuuri!” Hitoshi, an older man who spent so much time with Yuuri’s father that he could be an uncle at this point, claps him on the shoulder as he sets down a bowl of steaming rice. Yuuri smiles at him. “Thank you, my boy. Did your dancing go well today?”

“Yes, I think so,” he answers politely, setting down the seafood curry as well. “Minako-sensei and I have been working on a new routine of sorts. I think it is coming along nicely.”

“Wonderful!” Hitoshi claps his hands. “Maybe we’ll get to see it at the festival, eh?”

“Maybe,” Yuuri says with a demure smile, balancing the tray on his hip to brush his hair out of his eyes. He doesn’t know if he wants to perform at the solstice festival. There would be so many eyes on him, and for what? He just wants to _dance._ Being watched makes his mistakes stand out so much more.

He moves along, thanking each guest and exchanging a few words as he passes out their food, and tries not to think about how tired and sore he is already. It’s his own fault for dancing all evening instead of coming home to rest before the evening rush.

Outside, it begins to rain, and people wander in and out of the front room, coming in for hot drinks and food and company or going home to their families and beds. Hasetsu isn’t a particularly large town, and the inn is a common place for the community to gather in the evenings, just to see each other and exchange a few words. Yuuri and his family get to stay in the middle of it all, purely by being the innkeepers.

Perhaps that means that he already has the most exciting job there can be in this town. He doesn’t know if that thought makes his wistfulness better or worse.

The night wears on, the flood of people gradually thinning to a stream and then a trickle. Thunder rumbles softly in the distance, and lightning flashes in the clouds like a puff of glowing lace. The wind picks up, whistling around the corners of the inn before dying down again, and then the door opens, slamming in the wind so wildly that Mari cries out in alarm from the bar.

Someone all but collapses in the threshold, wrapped in a tattered cloak and soaked to the bone, and in the shocked hush that falls over the common room as the wind slams the door closed behind him, Yuuri hurries forward. “Are you alright?”

The newcomer pushes himself to his feet. He’s a traveller, by the looks of him, sopping and bedraggled. “I—I’m so sorry.”

“Please don’t worry,” Yuuri says, kneeling. “Are you hurt? Should we send for the doctor?”

“I…” The newcomer shakes his head, pushing his hood back with shaking hands. He must be freezing, Yuuri realizes, and hurries to take the sopping cloak.

“Come over here,” he urges. Behind him, Mari comes around the bar and hesitates, close enough that should he need help she’s there, but letting him handle it. “The fire will warm you up. Please, sit.”

“I—I don’t know if—I don’t have… My money, I can’t…”

“You don’t have to pay anything to sit by the fire,” Mari says. “Listen to my brother. I can get you a hot drink and a meal, on the house, if you need.”

The traveller finally manages to stand, still trembling, as Yuuri hangs his wet cloak by the fire. He’s taller than Yuuri thought he was, and though his clothes are plastered to his skin and he looks utterly miserable, he carries himself with grace. “Thank you for your kindness,” he says, crossing the room to curl up on the floor in front of the fire.

Yuuri exchanges bewildered glances with Mari. Hasetsu doesn’t often see travellers in the wintertime, especially not ones like this.

“Son,” Hitoshi says, concerned. “Do you have anything dry to wear? You’ll catch your death like this.”

The traveller shakes his head, holding his hands up to the hearth. “I’ll be fine.”

“Let me get you something,” Hitoshi persists, and stands. “My nephew’s about your size. I’ll be back.”

He takes his own oiled cloak and ducks out into the night, ignoring the newcomer’s protests, and Yuuri quietly goes to the kitchen to get some rice and curry for him. When he returns to the common room, Mari has placed some steaming tea in front of the man.

“Do you need a place to stay for the night?”

He hesitates. “I—I can stay here on the floor. I won’t get in your way, I promise. I don’t… I can’t… I don’t think I have anything I can pay with…”

He must have gotten robbed, Yuuri realizes, understanding now. That’s why he only has the clothes on his back and nothing more. Poor thing.

Mari must have come to the same conclusion. “Nonsense,” she says, hands on her hips. “We have spare beds. You can have one for tonight. I insist.”

The traveller looks so grateful that Yuuri, absurdly, blushes. He pulls his long, silvery hair to one side and reaches up to unclasp something from arund his neck, pulling it out from under his shirt. “This… may not be worth much, but if you would accept it as payment for your kindness…”

He sounds so well-spoken, under the shivering and the cold. It’s odd. Yuuri has never heard a voice quite so musical, an accent so lilting and soft. He rather likes the way this traveller speaks.

But he promptly forgets that at the sight of the sapphire-and-silver amulet in his palm. How in the world did any robbers miss _that?_ It must be worth a fortune. There’s a sigil of some sort under the gem, though it’s not from any kingdom that Yuuri recognizes.

“I—no,” Mari says, stepping back slightly. “We can’t accept this. It is yours.”

The traveller bites his lip and holds it out to Yuuri, who suddenly feels the eyes of the entire room on him. Eyes, ears, and whispers…

“I cannot impose on you like this for nothing in return. Please, take it, as a sign of goodwill if nothing more.”

When Yuuri doesn’t react, just standing there with wide eyes, the traveller reaches for his hand, places the amulet in it, and closes his fingers over it. It’s warm from being held, and the traveller’s hands are surprisingly soft.

Very hesitantly, Yuuri withdraws, his breath coming as a soft and shaky exhale. This must be the most valuable thing he’s ever touched, and this man gives it away so easily…

“You can stay as long as you’d like,” Mari says, quiet and as shocked as Yuuri. “If you insist on giving us this…”

“Please,” the man says, again.

Yuuri shakes his head, dazed. “Ah—what should we call you?”

Blue eyes, bluer than either the coldest ice or the sky on a summer’s day, meet his, and their mysterious new guest smiles. “Viktor.”

* * *

_ii. promises_

* * *

Their rings don’t match.

Absurdly, that’s the part Yuuri keeps focusing on. Viktor can tell from the way he keeps looking at the silvery band on his finger, then to the iron one in Viktor’s palm, not on his finger yet. Maybe he’s fixating on it to keep himself from panicking right now. God, maybe Viktor should fixate on it, too.

“It’s going to be alright,” he breathes, cupping Yuuri’s cheeks in his hands, pressing their foreheads together. “It’ll all be alright, Yuuri, I swear.”

“I know,” Yuuri answers, closing his eyes. Viktor can feel his breath against his lips, can hear the tremor in his voice, can feel the tension in his body. He’s nervous. He’s scared. He’s terrified.

And he has every right to be.

God, he’s so brave. He’s the bravest man Viktor has ever met. The bravest, the most selfless, the most beautiful—he’s agreed to do this for Viktor, to do this to give Viktor a chance to set everything right, to break the curse, to fix it. And he knows that if Viktor fails, he will die, and it will be slow and painful and horrific.

And yet he’s still agreed to do it.

“I love you,” Viktor murmurs, catching Yuuri’s lower lip between his own and kissing him hard hard hard. “I love you, I love you, I love you…”

Yuuri chokes on a suppressed sob as Viktor kisses him again, soft this time, and he feels his fingers twine in his hair. Yuuri has always touched his hair so gently, with such reverence, assuring him that it’s beautiful, like the sweetest moonlight and gentle silver and promises that are kept.

Viktor kisses him a third time, and a fourth, a fifth, sixth, and seventh, until he doesn’t know where he ends and Yuuri begins, the ring in the box forgotten for the moment. Once he steps back to deal with it, once he stops kissing Yuuri, he has to let him go.

He doesn’t want to let him go.

“I’ll be alright,” Yuuri whispers, but Viktor isn’t ready yet, and he just kisses him again, breathless and helpless and so full of sorrow that his chest aches from the weight of it. “Vitya. Vitya, I’ll—mmm—I’ll be okay. I will. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Viktor shakes his head, closing his eyes, pressing their foreheads together again. Yuuri strokes his cheek. “Of course I have to worry about you.”

“You don’t,” Yuuri insists, even as a tear rolls down his beautiful cheek. Viktor kisses it away immediately, his heart breaking in his chest. “You don’t. I’ll be fine.”

“They’ll hurt you,” Viktor breathes. He wraps his arms around Yuuri’s waist and presses him close, needing to erase the lines between them, needing… needing. “They’ll hurt you, Yuuri, god, maybe—maybe you don’t have to do this, we can find another way…”

“We tried,” Yuuri reminds him, pressing his face into his neck and clinging fiercely. “We tried, you know we tried, and this is it. I have to do this. I’ll be fine.”

“She’ll _hurt_ you,” Viktor sobs, his voice catching in his throat even though the tears don’t fall. She hurt him, a hundred years and some months ago, when he stumbled into her garden and ruined everything. It didn’t matter that he was young and stupid and that it was an accident. It didn’t matter. She still hurt him. The fae don’t care. They don’t care, and they just want vengeance, and they’ll _hurt Yuuri_ —

Yuuri cradles the back of his head. Why is he the one comforting Viktor right now? Shouldn’t this be reversed? “I think I’m strong enough to withstand a little hurt.”

“Yuuri,” he whispers, heartbroken, yearning, shattered. “I—I can’t do this.”

“You can,” Yuuri whispers back. Hot tears run down his neck and cool rapidly against his skin in the chilly night air. It’s cold, the way Yuuri has nuzzled his face into the little gap between Viktor’s jaw and his scarf, but the tendrils of winter caressing his skin just serve as a reminder of his curse, and that makes him far colder than any night air. “You can. I know you can.”

 _You have to,_ he doesn’t say. Viktor hears it anyway.

It sounds simple enough. He just has to sneak into the garden of the fae queen of winter and use his silver knife to cut a rose from its stem. But there are so many countless ways it could go wrong, and then Yuuri’s family and all of Hasetsu will follow Viktor’s kingdom into the bitterest night, forgotten and lost for eternity.

“I’m sorry.”

Yuuri lifts his head from his shoulder and kisses him again, desperate and hurting and terrified. Viktor clutches at him, holds him so tightly he’s afraid it might hurt, and kisses him back as ardently as he can. Yuuri is brave and beautiful and so, so strong. Yuuri is… Yuuri…

“It wasn’t your fault,” Yuuri whispers into his lips, again, just like he always does. “You didn’t know.”

“I should have,” he whispers back, but he closes his eyes and lets Yuuri pull him into another kiss. The wind rises around them, the moon climbing to its zenith. Midnight draws near.

“I—”

Yuuri breaks off, buries his face in Viktor’s scarf again, and shudders with the force of a silent sob that shatters Viktor’s heart into a thousand and one shards of glass, each stabbing into his chest with the pain and guilt of a fool who brought a horrific curse to his love.

“I don’t want you to go,” Yuuri admits, choking on another sob, and then he starts to cry into Viktor’s arms in earnest. Viktor presses him close, wanting to cry too, wanting to kiss him over and over and over, wanting him to be safe and loved and warm.

It’s been a long time since either of them has felt warm.

“I don’t want to go either,” he admits, bowing his head to bury his face in Yuuri’s hair. “I don’t want to go.”

But he can’t just take Yuuri and run away, far away from this awful wood. The curse will follow him, will follow both of them. Maybe next time it strikes, it’ll take Yuuri, just like it’s slowly but surely taking his family and the rest of Hasetsu. Yuuri can run, but if he did, where would he go?

They have to do this. It’s the only way. And yet, Viktor can’t bring himself to let go.

Yuuri cries, determined but afraid, for several minutes, and Viktor helplessly holds him and holds him and holds him. Each tear that soaks into his clothes weighs him down with guilt and horror, until it’s so heavy that he’s drowning, floundering amongst the waves with ten thousand rocks around his neck.

(He’s felt this way before.)

He sinks beneath the surface, gasps for air and breathes in nothing but the frozen sea, and finds within the frigid waves and the pain a new sense of resolve.

This hurts Yuuri. All of this hurts Yuuri. The only way to stop it from hurting Yuuri is to fix it.

And all that means is that he cannot fail.

When he finds it, his voice is low, raw, and emotional, but it’s there. He kisses Yuuri’s hair, his forehead, his brow, his tearstained cheeks and his swollen eyes, his pink, cold lips. Yuuri wipes at his face and breathes deeply, steadying himself.

His face is streaked with tears and his eyes are red. Standing there, in the starlight, with Viktor’s mother’s ring on his finger and a light dusting of windblown snow in his hair, he’s the most beautiful thing Viktor has ever seen.

“I love you,” he whispers hoarsely, and Viktor kisses him again, fervent and passionate and slow and sweet.

“I love you, too,” he answers, and finally takes the iron ring he’s been clutching in his hand this whole time. He passes it to Yuuri, wordlessly, and Yuuri looks up at him with big, shiny eyes.

“You… want me to…?”

Viktor nods. “Please.”

Yuuri takes his hand, kisses his knuckles, and slides the ring onto his finger. It takes a couple of tries because both of their hands are shaking, Yuuri’s more notably so, but when the cold metal settles against his skin, Viktor feels finality click into place.

Yuuri must, too, because he steps back slightly, letting out a tiny whimper even as he wipes his eyes again and replaces the tears with steely resolve.

Viktor kisses his cheeks again, caressing the last of the tears away. “Listen to me,” he says, low and intense. “This ring, this is a promise. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Yuuri whispers.

“I _will_ come back for you,” Viktor pledges, swearing his life on it. “I will.”

“I believe you.” Yuuri takes a shaky breath and smiles like the sun in springtime, tentative but warm, and Viktor could cry again at the sight, but he’s already drowned, so he doesn’t. “I know you will.”

Viktor’s heart is breaking, but he slowly, painfully lets go of him, stepping back. His boots crunch in the snow.

No words seem to fit, not anymore. With a last desperate look, he turns and flees into the darkened woods.

* * *

_iii. longing_

* * *

Winter has never been so cold.

The moon is distant and pale as they walk through the woods, the shadows of midnight stretching far across the snow crunching under their feet. Yuuri wonders at its wan light. It must be part of the curse, he knows, and the thought lets the chill seep even further into his bones. It’s so cold. His breath comes and goes in little puffs of mist.

“Your kingdom,” he finally says, breaking the silence, and Viktor (the prince, the one from the fairy tale, the prince from the fairy tale that isn’t so much of a fairy tale anymore) stops. His hair billows out like a silver stream when the wind gusts noisily through the trees. “Was it this cold?”

Viktor’s face softens with a sad smile. “Sometimes.”

Is that what Yuuri will look like when he thinks of Hasetsu, someday soon? When the snow buries everyone and they’re finally lost, forgotten, and gone? That sad smile may yet become familiar to Yuuri’s face.

Oh, god, Hasetsu. The snow won’t stop falling, and nobody can clear it away if they’re frozen. Are the people of Viktor’s kingdom still frozen, too, somewhere below a hundred years of eternal winter?

The thought is so horrifying that Yuuri has to divert himself somehow. “What was it like?”

Viktor reaches out and takes his hand, guiding him through the snow as they tramp through the forest. He seems to know where they have to go, even though it’s distant, and Yuuri trusts him.

“It was… very different,” he says, at length, his smile still sad and soft and vulnerable. “I loved my family dearly, but I think… court life was not for me. We threw the grandest of balls, though, Yuuri; I think you would have loved them, if you were there. The dancing was so beautiful, and it would go all night into the late hours of the morning, and everyone would come together to celebrate and put aside politics just for the night. You would have been beautiful there.”

Yuuri ducks his head as warmth rushes to his cheeks, warmth that he almost thought he’d forgotten the feeling of. (Perhaps that is why Viktor is trying to embarrass him.) “You flatter me.”

“Perhaps,” Viktor says, shrugging, “but I have seen you dance. And it is beautiful.”

Compliments fall like flowers from a prince’s lips. Yuuri shouldn’t be surprised or flustered. And yet he is.

How he aches, wants those compliments to _mean_ something. He wishes that he could be enough for them to have substance, wishes that he was—was _more._ But he’s not, and he can’t be, and so they won’t.

Perhaps this is the cautionary tale of his life. _Don’t wish to be higher than your station._ He spent years daydreaming about touching the stars, about going out of Hasetsu on some kind of grand, romantic adventure… and now that it’s happened, he’s terrified for his family and he wants nothing more than to return to the life he knows. And the man by his side is too beautiful, too noble, too graceful, and too… too _much_ for a romance to be the silver lining of their journey.

 _We’re going to fix this,_ he reminds himself.

They have to fix this. They _have_ to fix this, because if they don’t, Hasetsu will never recover, and Yuuri will never be able to go home. He won’t _have_ a home to go back to.

He’s so certain that they have to fix this that the idea of anything else rolls off him like water from a duck’s back. The concept of never seeing his mother’s smile again, never laughing at his father’s bad jokes or splashing Mari while they do dishes together, is so foreign that he just—he just rejects it. Of course the ice will recede. Of course springtime will come and heal them all. Of course the sun’s warmth will return.

It’s a certainty, in his mind, and feeling so certain despite his despair means that he has more time to focus on the uncertainties. Such as his enigma of a prince.

A prince who has become his friend.

A friend who has become…

Viktor talks, more and more as the moon rises and the shadows shrink. The birds are hushed and the snow crunches as they walk, so Viktor fills the silence by just talking, about anything and everything. He tells Yuuri about his old dog, the one who lived with his family and passed away before he left the royal city. He tells Yuuri about the politics, about his baby cousin who would have inherited the throne if not for the curse (and here, he sobers, eyes suspiciously bright, and Yuuri just squeezes his hand in sympathy).

He talks to cheer him up, Yuuri realizes. Or maybe to cheer both of them up. The snowy forest is so barren it feels desolate, and it makes his heart ache. Perhaps it does the same to Viktor, and filling the silence is his way of combating it.

Either way, Yuuri likes to listen, likes to laugh at Viktor’s jokes, likes to hold his hand in the snow.

“You’re quiet,” Viktor says, squeezing his hand, and when Yuuri looks up at him and is met with wind-mussed hair framing gently concerned blue eyes and a tiny smile, he has to catch his breath. “Are you alright?”

“Oh—yes, yes. I was just… thinking.”

Viktor’s smile fades, replaced by the shadow of guilt. “We’ll fix this, Yuuri. You’ll see your family again.”

“I—I know,” Yuuri stammers, dropping his gaze as unbidden shame creeps into the pit of his stomach. They’ll fix this, and then… maybe after that, if only…

Oh, who is he kidding? Viktor is the prince of a ruined kingdom from far away, and he’s just an innkeeper’s son. Once they take care of the curse, once everything is set back to rights, Viktor will surely forget about him and leave him behind. He’s nothing special, to catch the eye of someone so… so bright as his moonlight friend.

The thought hurts more than he’d like to admit.

* * *

  _iv. dance_

* * *

Yuuri only has to buy Viktor a few hours, just until the end of night. When the sun comes up…

The rising sun will bring with it the end, once and for all.

But he stands alone in the dark of night, the warmth of Viktor’s kisses already fading in the face of the blustery, bitter wind, swirling flurries of snow all around. Even running his thumb over the silver-and-sapphire ring on his finger, Viktor’s mothers ring, gives him scarce comfort, and he yearns for the days of normalcy and safety. What a fool he was, wishing for excitement.

This isn’t exciting. This is terrifying.

(Hasetsu lies buried in snow, everyone in it frozen in place, solid as ice. The wind carries with it the sound of loneliness and loss.)

He just has to buy a few hours. Just a few hours. Long enough for Viktor to get to the garden and cut the rose he pricked his finger on over a hundred years ago. Once the rose is cut from the plant, the curse will break. It will. It _has_ to.

By the time he manages to convince himself to move, the snow has started piling around his ankles. He has to step out quickly, numb from fear and cold and resignation, and squares his shoulders. The wind dies down as he nears the moonlit clearing, painted in silver and blue, and music drifts out in its place.

He has found Queen Mab, she who controls winter’s dreams.

He has found Queen Mab, she who cursed Viktor to lose that which he called “home” to the ice, forevermore.

He has found Queen Mab, and now he must give himself to her.

His boots crunch loudly through the snow as he draws his cloak about himself and approaches, a sharp contrast to the ethereal and silent fairy-lights that dance and sway through the clearing. The eyes of the fae queen and her court snap to him, sending a shiver down his spine and chilling him to the bone. The music falls silent, and for several moments, his footsteps are the only sound. Queen Mab leans on the armrest of her throne and narrows her eyes.

“Mortal.”

Her voice is sharper than the night wind and colder than the darkest ice. Yuuri freezes in his tracks and bows deeply.

“Y-Your Majesty.”

“You come here on the darkest night, interrupting my folk at our celebration of the solstice. Why have you sought me out?”

“I am—I am deeply sorry for my intrusion,” he squeaks out, heart hammering in his chest. Winter’s claws of fright sink into his bones and dig in, painfully, and for a moment he is so afraid he forgets how to speak. “I—that is—I am here to beg your mercy, Your Majesty. My town—ah, I mean—a cursed man came through, and he brought his curse upon us. My—my town is frozen, and I, I am here to plead for mercy on the behalf of Hasetsu—”

“The fae do not grant favors,” the Winter Queen warns. Yuuri shivers at the sound of her voice. The memory of warmth seems to have utterly deserted him.

“I know, Your Majesty,” he whispers. “I come b-bearing a gift.”

A courtier near her side laughs, a merry and tinkling sound, like a tiny bell made from stardust, but the Winter Queen herself just holds up a hand to stall her. “What gift would a mortal give to the fae?”

Yuuri bows again, as deeply as he can, and takes a deep breath. The cold air stabs icicles into his throat and his chest and burns all the way into his lungs.

“My—”

His voice catches. He thinks of his parents, frozen in the kitchen, and his sister, icy and bewildered near the empty hearth, and tries again.

“Myself. I would… dance for you. If it would please you, Your Majesty.”

The courtier with the starry-night-sky laughter giggles again, clapping her hands, and one on the opposite side of the throne pipes up, “A mortal? For us?”

Anxiety and terror have twin hands made of ice, just like everything else, as they stroke a mockery of loving caresses into Yuuri’s spine. _A mortal? For us?_

 _I will come back for you,_ Viktor promised, eyes shining with hot tears and determination strong enough to melt Hasetsu back to summer. Yuuri swallows hard and looks to the queen, waiting with his heart in his throat. If Viktor fails, if he doesn’t manage to keep his promise, this is it. Yuuri will either die now, or dance for the fae until his body gives out, and he will die then. If Viktor fails, his options are bleak.

Hasetsu is bleak, too. In a way, it’s comforting.

Queen Mab finally nods, sharp eyes glinting over his body. She waves one finger, her pointed nail glimmering in the moonlight like ice, and a large patch of snow blows away to reveal smooth, pale marble. A dance floor, dreamed up just for him.

(It’s beautiful, but he would prefer a sunlit studio with dark-panelled wood flooring, perpetually scented like Minako-sensei’s favorite tea.)

Yuuri takes another deep breath and wills himself not to shiver. He has to let the cold in, has to get used to it, has to dance in it. Has to dance _with_ it.

He strips off his coat and gloves and hat and boots, feeling uncomfortably naked and vulnerable in front of the eager eyes of the Winter Court, just waiting to tear him apart. But he can’t dance in all these layers, and for Viktor’s sake, he must dance.

Once he gets down to just one sweater and steps onto the marble dance floor, shivering despite himself in the night air, the music from before begins to swell again, soft and yet ever-present. It comes from every direction, and the wind bites into his exposed body, bringing tears to his eyes.

“Dance for me, mortal,” Queen Mab commands, idle and sharp. Yuuri might be frozen to the spot, he’s so afraid, and the blood in his veins feels like ice.

 _I have to buy time,_ he reminds himself, running his thumb over the silver band on his finger. _He will come back for me. He_ will.

He begins to move.

* * *

_v. home_

* * *

It is dawn. Sunlight spills over the edge of the horizon, streaking the ocean with gold and the sky with pink, and far away the stars retreat into the shelter of night.

Viktor sits on the rocks near the shore, quiet, pensive, contemplative. The breeze carries the scent of sea salt and wildflowers, mingled and soft. It smells like spring, like rebirth, like new beginnings, like _forgiveness_.

It’s been a long time since he’s tasted spring on the wind.

(Spring always comes after winter, they say. It’s the natural order of things. Perhaps he should not be so surprised, so humbled, that he gets to see it.)

(Perhaps they know less about the “natural order of things” than they think.)

Hasetsu is no longer a town of ice, cold and hard and silent. There are no more whistling winds whipping around frozen figurines, icy sculptures of people once flesh and blood. There is no more stillness, no more sorrow, no more regret. Instead, there is laughter and light and warmth, and there is life…

Footsteps approach, uneven as they clamber over the rocks behind him. “Vitya?”

…and there is love.

He turns, rising easily, and goes to meet Yuuri before he can clamber over a slippery stone, glistening with sea spray. “Careful, dearest,” he says, catching Yuuri’s arms and helping him over. “Should you be climbing rocks yet?”

Yuuri lets out a tiny sigh, sitting down on the rock behind them. “Probably not.”

“Mm.” Viktor looks down at his legs, his feet. He can’t see the bandages through Yuuri’s shoes, but he knows they’re there, covering painful blisters and bruises and still-healing wounds. “Forgive me. I should have sat somewhere easier for you to find me.”

He sits on the rock too, wrapping his arm around Yuuri’s waist, and Yuuri leans his head against his shoulder, quiet and soft. Their rings match now, catching the early-morning light, silver and silver. Soon, they will exchange these for gold and gold.

The sea laps at the rocks further down, the sound of water rolling over and around the stone ever-present and ever-soothing. The waves fluid patterns, ebbing and flowing, rushing and retreating, down along the shore, as far as the eye can see, stretching off into eternity.

It must still be cold, but it’s no longer icy. One day, when bright spring melts into golden summer, it will be warm.

(Viktor cannot wait for the waters to be _warm_. It has been so long…)

Yuuri breaks their companionable silence just as a small wave breaks on the stones. “Have you been out here for long?”

“Not terribly,” Viktor answers, closing his eyes and breathing in the air that smells of spring. “I wanted to watch the sun rise.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, and falls silent again. Viktor looks away from the calming sea and down at his lover, his sweet and strong husband-to-be who sits quietly with a storm in his eyes. The water’s calm has not permeated his heart, not today, and that makes Viktor frown.

He leans in to kiss the corner of his lips. “What’s on your mind, dear heart?”

Yuuri bites his lip, fidgets with the hem of his shirt, and looks away. The waves below curl and crash over the rocks, lapping endlessly at the coast, and the glowing sun inches a little higher into the sky, silent and triumphant. Overhead, a lone gull cries out into the light. Viktor waits.

“It’s just…” Yuuri sighs, his gaze downcast, eyes hidden by thick, dark lashes. There’s a dusky pink stain on his cheeks, almost the color of the sky but more beautiful, and without thinking, Viktor leans in to kiss him there, too.

Yuuri ducks his head.

“I…” he starts, then shakes his head _no_ and tries again. “This town—Hasetsu is so small, and nothing really exciting ever happens—though I guess we’ve had enough excitement for my tastes, at least,” and he snorts, as if what dancing for the fae queen did to his body is a laughing matter. “But I guess what I’m asking is, um… is it… are you sure? You’re sure it’s really enough to be your home? And you’ll be happy here?”

Viktor’s court training from a lifetime ago bristles, wants to ask if Yuuri really thinks him so shallow. Why should he care for riches or adventure, simply because he was born a prince, over a hundred years ago in a kingdom cursed and forgotten? After all they’ve been through together, surely Yuuri ought to think better of him.

But he knows better, now, knows that Yuuri speaks from the heart, with no hidden barbs and no subtle knives. Yuuri is honest about his worries and his fears, laying himself bare to him as if to say _I am in your hands, please be gentle with me,_ and all he wants is reassurance _._ Yuuri is nothing like golden prisons and stifling courts. Yuuri is a breath of fresh air, a soft sea breeze, the warmth of the sunrise.

Hasetsu is a promise, a new beginning, the scent of the wind in spring. Hasetsu is a family full of love and people who treat him as himself. Hasetsu is _Yuuri._

Hasetsu is home in ways that his castle never was.

He tips his lover’s chin up, waits until soft, hesitant brown eyes meet his gaze, and smiles with all the sincerity of a promise. “I have everything I need,” he murmurs, “and more, right here. Right in front of me.”

Yuuri’s answering smile is more precious than all the lost treasures of his kingdom, and his lips are far sweeter than the finest of royal delicacies.

* * *

_vi. journeys_

* * *

Their new guest takes the invitation to “stay as long as he likes” at face value. He seems to like Hasetsu, though Yuuri doesn’t completely understand why he seems so charmed by the fishermen in the morning or working in the inn’s kitchen to make lunch. Weeks pass, summer melts into autumn, and he shows no sign of leaving.

Though he doesn’t understand, Yuuri is pleased. Viktor is the most exciting thing to happen to Hasetsu in a long time.

He is also full of surprises.

He follows Yuuri to the dance studio one windy autumn day, tall and elegant and yet full of vibrant curiosity, like a cup filled to the brim with warmth that spills over into everyone around him. Everywhere he goes, he leaves infectious smiles in his wake.

“May I join you?” he asks, as Yuuri begins going through his warm-up stretches, and Yuuri lifts an eyebrow.

“You are already here, aren’t you?”

Viktor laughs, merry and bright. “I meant in dance. Would you mind a partner?”

“I didn’t know you dance,” Yuuri says, and holds out his hand.

Viktor sweeps him off his feet, twirls him around the floor like it’s a dazzling ballroom and not a simple studio, laughs as he stumbles through a step that seems half-forgotten, and smiles so brightly Yuuri almost can’t look at him directly. Where did he learn to dance like this? And why? Who _is_ he?

When he asks, later, as they sit together and share a cup of tea in the common room, Viktor’s brilliant smile falters.

“I am a man who cannot go home,” he finally says, and then shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Yuuri. Who am I? I’m still trying to figure it out myself. When I do, I’ll let you know.”

“You… could always call a new place home,” Yuuri suggests, a little shy, looking down into his tea and stealing a glance at Viktor through his eyelashes.

(Little do they know that this, this innocent offer made from a kind heart, is the beginning of their downfall.)

“I could,” Viktor says, and once again, he smiles.

Yuuri is travelling, a little day trip to one of their neighbor villages to teach dance lessons to children like he does, once a month, when winter’s first wind begins to blow. It shouldn’t be; the first of autumn wasn’t too long ago, and he doesn’t understand, but he shivers nonetheless.

(It is a premonition of what is to come, but of course, he doesn’t understand that until later.)

The sun is starting to sink in the sky, so he says his farewells and starts the journey home. It’s a few hours of walking by himself in the gloaming woods, watching the sun’s amber glow fade to scarlet through the trees. The moon has just begun to rise somewhere in the distance when he crests the hill overlooking Hasetsu, and shivers—it’s much colder than he anticipated it would be when he set out this morning, and he’s looking forward to some hot tea in front of the hearth at the inn.

The lights in the village are all off.

That’s odd, he thinks, frowning down into the young night. Usually by now the streetlamps have been lit, the lights in the windows are blazing merrily, and people have begun the nightly trickle to the inn. But all he can see are cold, empty streets under the moon.

The wind picks up, sending his cloak flapping about his shoulders.

Anxiety starts up its whispers of fear, coiling insidious little thoughts of foreboding and dread into his mind until they sink heavily into the pit of his stomach like stones covered in frost.

Yuuri picks up his pace.

When he nears the entrance to town, he can tell that something must be wrong. Something must be very wrong. The arch welcoming travellers to Hasetsu is covered in ice, icicles hanging from its underside ominously, and he gasps as he sees it. The air is so cold his chest aches.

Winter should not be here yet. And even were winter at its worst, it shouldn’t be like _this._

The air is blustery and freezing as he walks further, but aside from the whistling of the wind, the town is covered in an eerie silence, punctuated only by the crunch of his boots through the snow. It doesn’t snow in Hasetsu, not in autumn, and the dread only rises, cloying, to choke his breath.

He calls out anyway. “H-hello? Hello, where is everyone?”

Only the wind answers.

He draws his cloak more tightly around himself and presses further into town, passing buildings completely covered in ice. The snow is coming down in thick flurries, making it ridiculously difficult to see, and in the obscurity he gasps again, horror punching the breath from his lungs. This is wrong. Homes should not be frozen like this.

Panicking, he dashes to the nearest house and tries to bang on the ice-encrusted door. “Hello? Is anyone in there? Please, it’s Katsuki Yuuri! What’s happened?”

The ice cracks after a few moments of frantic pounding, and he slides the door open only to find a sight that will surely haunt him for the rest of his days.

The carpets are covered in frost, the walls shimmer with ice, and the figures…

Hitoshi-san sits on the floor, an arm outflung as though to deflect a blow. His daughter Misaki is standing nearby, her mouth open in a silent cry of fear.

Both of them are frozen solid.

“No,” Yuuri whispers. It finally sinks into his chilled bones that something is terribly, awfully wrong. Outside, the wind rises.

Horror and dread churning in his stomach, Yuuri stumbles back from Hitoshi-san’s home and into the main street, this time dashing madly through the snowstorm towards the inn. The inn has to be there, please, his family has to be alright—

When he gets there, the inn door is ajar, swaying slightly, creaking in the wind. Snow blows inside its icy floor, the wood encased in a slippery sheen. Yuuri, shaking, inches inside to the common room, and immediately comes face-to-face with his frozen sister.

“Mari,” he breathes, reaching for her. He touches her cheek, but just for an instant—cold burns him, even through his gloves, and he jerks back with a cry. “No, no, no, _no!”_

(If his tears freeze on his eyelashes, nobody will be any the wiser.)

But a new sound distracts him, makes him perk up as hope (desperate, fleeting hope) jolts through his veins: someone else is crying.

He nearly trips over a frozen chair in his haste to throw himself toward the kitchens, where the voice is coming from. Please, please, _please_ , who else is left? Please, he can’t be the only one; he isn’t, is he?

Viktor is kneeling on the icy floor in front of Yuuri’s frozen mother, sobbing.

He isn’t made of ice.

“I’m s-so sorry,” he gasps, choking on his own tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t _know—_ I never should have come here—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh, god, oh god I’m so sorry—”

“Viktor?”

Viktor whips around, red-eyed and blotchy-cheeked, and gapes like the koi in the frozen pond used to. “Y-Yuuri?”

He flings himself forward and sweeps Yuuri into a fierce embrace for just a moment, a warm and wonderful moment in this frightening, frozen world, before he stumbles back, falls to his knees, and clasps his hands together. Yuuri wants to cry himself.

“I’m sorry,” he babbles, bowing his head. “Oh, Yuuri, I am so, so sorry, this is all my fault, oh, god, you must hate me now, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, your family, your hometown, I brought my curse, oh, I’m sorry—”

“Curse?”

Yuuri doesn’t know much about curses, but every story he’s ever read or danced that involves a curse always involves the breaking of that curse. This curse must be breakable too. It must be, because the other option is that he lives in a world without his family, a world without Hasetsu, and he cannot do that. He just—he can’t.

“I was cursed,” Viktor nods, bobbing his head. He’s still crying. “I—winter refuses to let me have a home. I was a stupid boy when I was younger and I accidentally entered the fae queen’s gardens and I pricked my finger on a rose, and—she was angry. This is… this is all my fault,” and he buries his face in his hands, sinking to the floor.

Yuuri takes a deep breath, leaning against the frozen wall and pressing his face into his gloved hands. His family is cursed. Viktor considered Hasetsu home, and the curse descended on them all for it. But curses can be broken, and there must be a way. There _has_ to be a way.

He is so far past “shock”, “horror”, and “denial” that he is almost calm.

“Get up,” he says, and Viktor’s head snaps up.

“What…?”

“Get up,” Yuuri repeats. “Come on. We’ll fix it.”

Viktor gets up.

There is nothing left here save the wind and the ice. Yuuri doesn’t know where to go, but nonetheless, they leave immediately.

In Hasetsu, the snow continues to fall.

* * *

_vii. dreams_

* * *

How utterly incongruous it is that something so delicate and beautiful as this single rose could cause so much suffering, so much loss, so much death.

Viktor runs his fingers over one of the soft, velvety blue petals, twirls the stem anxiously between his fingers as he walks, beyond exhausted but driven by dread. He should be running. He can’t afford to slow, to stop, to rest. What happened to Yuuri? The fae queen, what has she _done?_

He’s close. The hilly forest begins to thin around him, soon to give way to the clearing where he left his love, and though the sun has not quite risen, the sky grows light.

“Yuuri,” he whispers into the chill wind. Hasetsu is saved, the curse has been broken, but Yuuri… He has to come home. Hasetsu cannot have been saved at the price of her sweetest son. Viktor can’t accept that.

He _won’t._

Fear and worry give him the energy to scramble up the final snowy and steep stretch of the slope, and he stumbles into the pristine meadow to see absolute stillness, a blanket of fresh snow resting around the empty dais where the Queen sat when he saw her, a hundred years ago, condemning him to never have a home in punishment for accidentally stumbling into hers. The clearing looks almost exactly as it did then, except…

A small figure, still and motionless, lies curled up, a dark stain in the snow.

Viktor’s heart leaps into his throat and stops, and the exhaustion falls from his weary bones as he sprints across the meadow, boots crunching loudly in the snow. “Yuuri!”

(The wind and the fading stars are his only answer.)

He falls to his knees next to Yuuri, scoops him into his arms, and fumbles desperately for a pulse, a sign of life, _anything._ He’s so cold. “Oh, god, my sunshine, please, please…”

Yuuri’s head lolls against his shoulder as Viktor bows his head to hide the tears. But his fingers find a faint, slow pulse fluttering in Yuuri’s neck, and his own heart falters, skips a beat, and then soars on the wings of desperate hope. Yuuri…. he hasn’t lost Yuuri yet.

He strips out of his cloak and bundles his love up in it, ignoring the chill on his own tired body, and lifts him over his shoulder to stumble out of the clearing. They may have defeated the curse, but this is still the land of the Winter Queen, and Viktor wants to take no more chances.

Near the bottom of the hill, he follows the crude path, arms aching from carrying Yuuri, until he discovers their old campsite, remnants of the fire almost completely covered in snow. On another day, he might have thought it poetic. Today, he lays Yuuri down and fumbles with numb hands to strike flint and tinder until he can get a blaze going again.

The warmth does Yuuri good, restoring a hint of rosy pink to his pale cheeks, and he moans softly, turning towards it though his eyes do not open. The tears in Viktor’s eyelashes trickle down his cheeks as he gathers Yuuri into his arms, holding him, rocking him gently side-to-side, kissing his dear face.

“I am sorry,” he whispers. “I am so sorry, my dearest Yuuri, my love. She won’t hurt you. She’ll never touch you again.”

The sun inches further into the sky, dazzling beams of light spilling over the horizon and between the trees and painting the snow a brilliant gold. The sunlight is warm as well, weak though it may be against the cold, and Viktor turns his tearstreaked face up to it, closes his eyes, and breathes in. The air is still crisp and brisk and frozen, but this unnatural winter is finally ending.

The sun is rising.

They have made it through the long night.

Once Yuuri is less alarmingly cold and seems more stable, Viktor gently unwraps the layers of clothes from around him. His body, his knees and especially his feet, are covered in bruises and blisters and dried blood around fresh scabs, and just from looking at him, Viktor knows exactly how he spent his night.

 _Amuse me,_ Queen Mab once declared, a hundred-and-one years ago, _and perhaps I shall let you live, mortal._

Viktor, a charming and terrified prince, sang for her. Sang until his voice gave out and his throat burned and his lungs screamed _mercy, please,_ and when he finally croaked out a request to rest, she knocked him to the ground for his insolence. He stayed there, “resting”, for a hundred years.

Yuuri must have danced for her, until Viktor cut the rose and banished her. Yuuri, beautiful, darling Yuuri…

Yuuri loved his dancing. Viktor loved watching him, loved dancing _with_ him. How he hopes that this bitter, fey queen has not taken that love and that passion from him.

Tears slide down his cheeks as he heats snow over the fire until he has warm water, gently rinsing the dirt from Yuuri’s wounds, and tears drip from his chin into the bandages he wraps them in.

He stops to wipe his face. Saltwater stings, and he doesn’t want to hurt Yuuri further.

Yuuri stirs, briefly, at one point, mumbling “No, please, so tired,” and _“Vitya,”_ so plaintively that Viktor’s heart shatters into a rain of glass shards. He pulls Yuuri into his arms again, cradles him close and kisses his cheeks.

“Shh, darling,” he murmurs. Yuuri needs rest, but of course nightmares will plague him. They still slip their harsh whispers and send cruel fingers to grasp at his dreams, even a year after he woke from his horrific magical slumber. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

Yuuri tosses and turns in his sleep, and Viktor kisses his brows, holds him close, and tries desperately to let him know that he is safe, he is loved, and the sun is rising. It must be late morning by the time he quiets and lets Viktor return to his ministrations.

The reddened blisters, harsh and angry, are stark against the mottled bruising and the scrapes and cuts from a night’s worth of abuse, and just the sight of them makes tears well up in Viktor’s eyes again. He knows Yuuri pushes himself when he dances, but this is far, far beyond any healthy limits. Yuuri most likely won’t be able to walk, let alone dance, until his battered feet heal.

If he ever wants to dance again at all.

(Viktor, forgotten lark of a forgotten kingdom, no longer sings.)

When he finishes tending to Yuuri, he glances around the woods again. The sunlight glitters almost harshly on all the crystalline ice and snow, shining and shining and shining with golden warmth, and his breath catches in his throat.

The ice is beginning to melt.

“Oh, Yuuri,” he whispers, touching his resting beloved’s cheek. “Oh, my love. We did it. It’s over.”

Yuuri sighs in his sleep.

Viktor finally sets out the second bedroll, right next to the first, and engages in some careful maneuvering until he can gather Yuuri into his arms again, both of them curled up next to the fire. The blue rose cutting sits innocently in his satchel, wrapped in a square of cloth. He doesn’t yet know what to do with it.

Yuuri sighs again, dismissing those thoughts, and his eyelashes flutter. Viktor’s attention snaps to him, exhausted though he is, as Yuuri looks at him with slow, sleepy brown eyes.

“Vitya?”

“I’m here,” he babbles, again, just as he has been doing. “Oh, Yuuri, you’re _awake…_ ”

Yuuri blinks very groggily. His body must be screaming, but he doesn’t seem to acknowledge it as he scrutinizes Viktor’s face, and Viktor feels his eyes start to fill with tears again.

“Is it over?” Yuuri finally asks.

The tears spill.

“It’s over,” Viktor agrees, kissing him through the taste of salt. “Oh, god, Yuuri, it’s over. She won’t ever hurt you again.”

Yuuri lets out a slow breath. “Or you,” he murmurs, and then he closes his eyes again, tucking his head under Viktor’s chin.

In the warming sun and the melting snow, with his beloved safe and sound in his arms, exhaustion finally takes over, and Viktor cries himself to sleep. He dreams of a town by the seaside, the warmth of midsummer, and the smiles of a newfound family.

Later, as Yuuri leans heavily into him as they slowly walk back through Hasetsu’s sun-warmed gates, a cheer goes up as soon as they’re spotted. Soon they’re surrounded by a concerned and excited crowd, welcoming them home after their sudden disappearance.

Later still, Yuuri leans against his shoulder as they sit in the inn’s common room and Viktor tells their story, both of them tired but smiling.

After that, he holds his nightmare-wracked lover and gently, softly sings him back to sleep.

And in the end, he finally realizes that, perhaps, some dreams do come true.

**Author's Note:**

> In case it wasn't clear, the order of the story is I, VI, III, II, IV, VII, V!


End file.
